UN denies it reduced Gaza's death count
The United Nations has not challenged the accuracy of data from the Gaza Ministry of Health, despite false news accounts
Several news organizations falsely reported that the United Nations has rejected the number of deaths reported by the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health, cutting those numbers nearly in half.
Some inaccurate reports came from major news outlets, such as MSNBC and USA Today.
“I know this will shock a lot of people watching, but Hamas lies, and Hamas has been given inflated numbers over the past five, six months,” said Joe Scarborough on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Monday during a segment. “The United Nations finally, finally a couple of days ago, actually looked at a lot of numbers and said it’s just not possible. These numbers are inflated, grossly inflated.”
USA Today reported: “The United Nations reduced estimates for the number of women and children killed during Israel's war in Gaza by nearly half, inviting new scrutiny for figures that come from the militant group Hamas.”
Neither of these reports, and others like it, are true. The United Nations has not reduced the number of total fatalities in Gaza, which stands at more than 35,000.
When asked if the United Nations had cut in half the number of women and children who died in Gaza, Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesperson for the Secretary-General, said, “It’s not quite the case, no.”
The United Nations does not provide independent estimates of Gazans killed by Israel. It relies entirely on the Gaza Ministry of Health for data. Haq said the Gaza Ministry of Health estimates have proven accurate in past conflicts.
What has changed is the type of data the Gaza Ministry of Health reports. Recently, the ministry released more complete data on deaths when the bodies could be identified by name. Out of 34,633 deaths reported on April 30, the ministry fully established the identities of 24,686 of them.
Now, the ministry reports two sets of numbers for how many women and children have been killed - one based on a count of the total number of deaths and another for the bodies it could identify.
“We think they’re very high, frankly, and it could be that they’re even higher than are being cited,” the State Department’s Barbara Leaf said. “We’ll know only after the guns fall silent.”
The United Nations recently chose to use the more conservative numbers for women and children on its website. As of Tuesday, it reported that Israel has killed at least 7,797 children, 4,959 women, and 1,924 elderly. They make up 60% of the total deaths for bodies that were identified by name.
These numbers are substantially lower than those the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs had previously posted. However, the UN chose a new set of incomplete numbers the Gaza ministry produced. The UN is not challenging the ministry's previous numbers.
Haq said as more bodies are identified, the numbers will be re-evaluated.
The real problem is that it is nearly impossible to count deaths in Gaza accurately. That’s because the medical infrastructure in the war-torn region has collapsed. What’s more, because of the extent of the destruction, at least 10,000 bodies are believed to be buried under rubble, the Gaza Ministry of Health told CNN. Those numbers are not yet included as fatalities.
Even when the hospitals were still operating last November, Barbara Leaf, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, testified before Congress that the fatalities numbers were likely conservative.
“We think they’re very high, frankly, and it could be that they’re even higher than are being cited,” Leaf said. “We’ll know only after the guns fall silent.”